for once he had experienced a curious sensation which cowardly men
call "fear," but for which Piero had neither name nor tolerance, when
all the people who had been worrying him led him in triumph to the altar
and forced him down on his stubborn knees to take a solemn oath of
allegiance, his great bronzed hand, all unaccustomed to restraint,
resting meanwhile in the slippery silken clasp of the ducal secretary.

Here also had the gastaldo received, from those same patrician hands,
the unfurled banner of the Nicolotti, with the sacramental words:

"We consign to you the standard of San Nicolo, in the name of the Most
Serene Prince and as proof that you are the chief gastaldo and head of
the people of San Nicolo and San Raffaele."

And after that had come freedom of breath, with the Te Deum, without
which no ceremonial was ever complete in Venice, chanted by all those
full-throated gondoliers--a jubilant chorus of men's voices, ringing the
more heartily through the church for those unwonted hours of repression.

But when the doors had at last been thrown wide to the sunshine and the
babel of life which rose from the eager, thronging populace who had no
right of entrance on this solemn occasion--men who had no vote, women
and children who had all their lives been Nicolotti of the Nicolotti--a
Venetian must indeed have been stolid to feel no thrill of pride as the
procession, with great pomp, passed out of the church to a chorus of
bells and cannon and shouts of the people, proclaiming him their chosen
chief.

Piero Salin was a splendid specimen of the people--tall,
broad-shouldered, gifted by nature and trained by wind and wave to the
very perfection of his craft; positive, nonchalant, and masterful;
affable when not thwarted; of fewer words than most Venetians; an adept
at all the intricacies of gondolier intrigue, and fitted by intimate
knowledge to circumvent the _tosi_. Moreover, he was in favor with the
government, a crowning grace to other qualities not valueless in one of
this commanding position.

No wonder that the enthusiasm of the populace was wild enough to bring
the frankest delight to his handsome sun-bronzed face as they rushed
upon him in a frenzy of appreciation and bore him aloft on their
shoulders around the Piazza San Nicolo, almost dizzied with their haste
and the smallness of the circle opened to them in the little square by
the throng who pressed eagerly around him to grasp his hand--to wave
t